Mephistopheles and the Stripper
by AudeliaMarlowe
Summary: Set a generation before Rocky Horror, another alien from the galaxy of Transylvania seduces an Earth woman with results that may surprise you! This story provides part of the back-story for my other fic, Aftershock.
1. Chapter 1

The tall man in the fedora clicked his little hooves down the darkest street in Pine City. It was a warm night, and just humid enough to make your skin feel dirty. He stopped under an awning to take off the hat and wipe the sweat from his bald head with a ragged handkerchief.

His name was Mephistopheles Smith, or so he said. He was a con man- no, a con artist, for there really was an art to the way Mr. Smith made his living. Sure, he did his fair share of pick pocketing. But he also put on one-man shows in every city he visited to pay the way for his nomadic lifestyle. In the shows, which had become something of a sensation, Mephistopheles pretended to be an angel from hell, sent to recruit people for this "alternative paradise." It was a premise that landed his name a place in a few newspapers and in more than a few "prayer lists" during local preachers' sermons.

But the shows were a hit, and Mephistopheles was raking in the dough, as well as the groupies. He had amassed a surprisingly large club of loyal fans who loved his angel-from-hell character. None of them, it seemed, could tell whether or not Mephistopheles believed the story himself. He was a method actor, they said, who never took off the horns glued to his head or the strange hoof-like shoes on his feet.

They were wrong, the silly humans. Mr. Smith was simply working with what nature gave him. He wasn't a demon, though- that would be silly! No, Mephistopheles was an alien from the planet Transportable in the galaxy of Transylvania.

(Perhaps you've heard of this galaxy? There are many planets in the Transylvanian system: Transportable, Transparent, Transsexual, Transposition, Transcendent, and Transformable are the main six, though there are a few smaller planets controlled by the larger planet kingdoms.)

In Transportable, the people have evolved to grow features similar to the Earthlings' depiction of a demon. And so, Prince Mephistopheles used this to his advantage.

Oh dear, I do believe I've forgotten to tell you. Mephistopheles was heir to the throne of Transportable, sent on a mission from his father, King Orcus. Like all well-bred Transylvanian youth, he was to spend a few years studying the Earth. Mephistopheles was a bit rebellious, though, and ditched his assignment for a very long holiday.

And tonight, without his groupies, the prince lurked through the streets of the small southern California city looking for fun and sin. He leaned against the glass windows of the vacant store behind him and stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. Then, after a heavy sigh, he kept walking. Mephistopheles wasn't sure what he wanted to find, but he figured anything was better than the stuffy hotel room he was shelling out $4.40 a night for. Lost in thought, he almost didn't notice the half-burnt-out sign of the Club Extravaganza. He smiled. This was just what he was looking for.

He paid the cover charge and went inside.


	2. Chapter 2

The Club Extravaganza looked like paradise to Mephistopheles. Beautiful ladies hung around overwhelmed-looking men, with more around every corner. He checked his hat with a dumb-looking brute near the door. Next to the stage a band was slugging their way through some vaguely familiar song with more than a little difficulty. The house lights went down as Mephistopheles found himself a seat and ordered a drink.

A bad comedian did a little routine, which made Mephistopheles cringe. He thought about leaving, but decided to stay out of sheer boredom. He was rewarded a few minutes later, when the comedian left the stage and the lights went down again. When the spotlight flicked back on, a beautiful woman was standing where the comedian had been only moments earlier. A great improvement, thought Mephistopheles.

"Introducing Deadpan Dolores," said an announcer in a booming voice. "The newest sensation of the Club Extravaganza!"

The band resumed playing, a little better this time. Dolores bumped and grinded her way through a routine unlike anything the audience had ever seen. All eyes were on her as she artfully shed layers of fabric, revealing a golden-pink skin and a body with perfect curves.

Mephistopheles tried to play it cool, but he was transfixed by the stripper. She was more than a stripper, like he was more than a con man. When Dolores's routine was finished, there were three or four more. The last one was supposedly the star of the show, a woman they called Marvelous Melaina, but it was obvious that no one could compare to Dolores's natural talent.

The house lights went up again, and the strippers were circulating through the audience, including those who'd been in the floorshow. Mephistopheles spotted Dolores across the room, flirting with a sickly-looking man with a carnation in his suit's buttonhole. He stared her down until he was sure she felt his eyes digging into the back of her head. She turned around.

He smiled and waved at her with his glass of scotch. A confused look on her face, she left the man with the carnation and wandered to his table.

"Hello," she said to him, her voice a mixture of honey and cement. "Haven't seen you around here before."

"I'm new in town. Sit down, please. Have a drink with me."

"Thank you, Mr..."

"Smith."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Smith, but I don't want to ignore the other customers."

"Nonsense, Dolores. Please, have a seat." He gestured to the chair across from him, and she finally sat down.

"You know my name?"

"I wasn't aware that it was a secret, Miss Deadpan."

"I hate that name. Mr. Rovak came up with it. It's Dolores Keller, just like it's always been."

"Apologies, Miss Keller." He took a sip of the scotch. "What would you like to drink?"

"Anything. Whatever you're having."

"Good answer." He flagged down a waiter, who took the order, then disappeared with a scornful look toward Dolores. "So, Miss Keller, tell me about yourself."

"Oh, I'm boring." Dolores fidgeted a bit in her seat. "I love my job, though. I've been an ecdysiast for a couple of years, but I've only been here for about 6 months. They've just given me a place in the shows. I used to only be one of the girls out on the floor."

"Well, congratulations on the promotion. But I don't believe I've ever heard of an ecdysiast." Mephistopheles let the scotch swish around in his glass.

"It's what I prefer to be called, instead of a stripper. It's Greek. It means 'shedding skin.' The word 'stripper' is just too demeaning."

"Beauty and brains- Miss Keller, you're too good to be true. I suppose you have fancy ideas about becoming famous?"

"Call me Dolores, please. And no, I don't have any big delusions of grandeur. That's my cousin, Patty. She keeps making noises that she wants to move out here and become a star. That's not for me. I'm too happy the way things are." She paused for a second, and leaned a little closer to Mephistopheles. "Tell me more about yourself, Mr. Smith."

Mephistopheles chuckled, as the waiter brought drinks for the both of them. "I'm a traveler. And a bit of a performer, like yourself. But most of all, I'm a lover."

"A... lover. Of what?"

"Of everything. Life. People. You?"

"Mr. Smith, that's absolutely the worst pick up line I've ever heard, and I've heard some doozies."

"But it's working, isn't it?"

"You're a pig!" Dolores started to stand up.

"And you, Dolores, are a stripper." He took her glass of scotch and downed it in one gulp before standing up to leave.

"Wait!" She jumped up behind him and grabbed his arm. "Don't leave. I'm not done talking to you. You're not like everybody else… you're honest. It's weird."

"I'm far less honest than you believe, Miss Keller, but don't let me break your spirits. Care to come see my hotel room? I reckon we could make the windows rattle a little, couldn't we, with some cheap and meaningless sex?"

She shivered. "I told you to stop calling me that."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Yes." She looked him straight in the eyes. "Tonight is for honesty."

He threw a wad of cash on the table, collected his hat from the coat check, and they were off into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: This is my last chapter of the Hello Oblivion saga, and the last chapter of fanfic that I will write. Thank you for enjoying my work these past few months. All your kind reviews have really meant a lot! I'm sorry this last bit has taken so much time to get here, but I've been busy with summer classes. Please read this chapter, and at the end you will see how it ties in to the RHPS story.**

* * *

><p>"So, who are you?" Dolores asked her new companion as they walked down the street. Not a single other person was out, and if they were, they probably wouldn't have cared that Dolores was still wearing her costume. That was Pine City.<p>

"You said tonight is for honesty?" Mephistopheles lit cigarettes for both of them.

"Yeah. Tell me the truth." Dolores blew a perfect smoke ring into the air.

"I'm an alien from a far-away planet who's here gallivanting on my royal father's dime while conning humans out of their extra cash."

"Now pull the other one." She laughed.

"Don't you believe me?"

"Why should I?"

"Dearest Dolores, didn't your mother ever teach you not to answer a question with a question?"

"But you just did."

"Did what?"

"Answer a question with a question."

"Clever Dolores. Leave it to me to find the smartest 'ecdysiast' in this godforsaken city."

"Are you making fun of me, Mr. Smith?"

"I'd never dream of it, my darling." And with that, they'd reached Mephistopheles's seedy hotel. They stomped out the butts of their cigarettes on the sidewalk before going inside.

"Lovely place you have here," Dolores said with a smirk.

"Now who's the one making fun? Even alien princes have a budget, Dolores. Room's on the fourth floor. After you."

"Such a gentleman," she replied, stepping into the creaky old elevator that was just big enough for the two of them.

Inside room 407, Mephistopheles motioned for Dolores to sit down on the sofa. "How about another drink?"

"Only if you don't steal this one, too."

"I'll take that as a yes. Just a moment." He produced a rather dodgy looking bottle from underneath a pile of clothes in the corner and set about mixing some refreshments.

"Mmm, delicious."

"Of course." Mephistopheles sat down next to Dolores on the sofa. "Here you go."

"Thanks. So... have you been here long?" She took a sip.

"About a week, maybe. I'm trying to set up some shows?"

"Only a week? It looks like a hurricane's been through here. And what kind of shows?"

"Sort of a variety one-man-show. It's hard to describe. But it pays the bills."

"I know the feeling." Dolores looked down at her costume and took another gulp of the drink. "What is this, anyway?"

"It's a specialty liquor that we make, back where I'm from."

"It's nice. Got a little cough syrupy taste to the back of it, but otherwise nice. Where are you from, anyway?"

"I already told you." He moved closer. "A planet that's far, far away from here."

"Not coming off of that, are you?" She laughed. "Well, when are you going back to that planet?"

"Never, hopefully. I like it here. Transportable's a good place, but Earth is more interesting. There's more variety to the people. And here, I don't have to live under my dad's shadow. Or worry about managing anything, certainly not a planet's government."

"Your father, the king." Dolores swirled the rest of her drink around in her glass. "Why do you tell these stories? You oughtta write a novel or something, not lie to me."

"It's not a lie. I promise you." He looked her straight in the eyes, matching her seriousness. "See these horns? These hooves? They're not just for decoration. That's what people look like on my planet. I'm telling the truth."

"I did notice the horns and things," Dolores admitted, "But why are you telling all me this? I've never gone hunting for aliens or anything. And I'm just some dumb stripper."

"You're not just some dumb stripper. You told me so yourself. There's really something special about you."

"Thanks." Dolores smiled, leaned in, and kissed him.

They set the drinks down, and moved to the bed. Mephistopheles pushed another pile of junk off the covers as Dolores pushed herself on top of him.

I bet you can guess what happened next.

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><p>Early the next morning, Dolores woke up. Where was she? She looked around. Must be someone's hotel room. Who had she gone home with? It was all such a blur.<p>

No one else seemed to be around, so she gathered her things, stole a shirt so big it hung to her knees, and slunk back to her own apartment.

Mephistopheles felt bad. He watched Dolores leave from the hotel lobby, knowing she'd never remember him. The Transportablarians were advanced chemists, and he'd slipped a memory-destroying root powder into her drink the night before. Halfway into the conversation he wished that he hadn't, but that was the breaks. He shook his head and went back to the tiny elevator. There could've been something there. He'd have to be more open in the future. It wasn't right to be so guarded all the time.

Entering the room, he knew it was time to leave Pine City. He'd travel north, anywhere away from this place. It shouldn't have been just a one-night-stand. Mephistopheles began to pack.

By nightfall, he was gone, and Dolores was back at her routines at the Club Extravaganza. She couldn't shake the fuzzy feeling in her head, but chalked it up to too much alcohol. Must've had fun last night, she thought. But still, she wished she remembered. There was a hint of something in the back of her mind that felt something was missing.

Weeks passed. Mephistopheles was up to his old tricks in San Francisco, where he'd hit it big. Dolores kept dancing, until one morning when she woke up in horrible pain.

She called an ambulance, which whisked her to the hospital. With hours of effort, Dolores gave birth to the first Transylvanian egg that Earth had ever seen. The doctors took it away for study, and they were surprised beyond belief when it hatched 21 days later with identical twin boys.

No one wanted the children, but they needed homes. The hospital didn't even tell Dolores, who thought she'd passed some kind of tumor out of her reproductive system. As a stripper, they didn't see her as a fit mother. So, a very small Christian adoption service out in north Texas took pity on the boys.

The orphanage didn't want to tell the truth about the boys' strange beginning, so they told everyone that the parents had been killed in a car wreck.

Soon, Bradley and Farley, as they'd been named, were adopted into loving families in the Denton area.

But what about Mephistopheles? Despite his success in the Bay Area he couldn't stay away from Pine City. Many months passed, and he went back to find her. He moved back in to the same hotel, and took a job in a sketchy bar near the Club Extravaganza. He hoped that one day she'd come in.

And one day, she did. Dolores came in to meet a successful-looking man, all dressed up in her nicest clothes. Mephistopheles was their waiter, and he couldn't stop staring.

"Who's that creep?" he heard her whisper to the other man.

In that moment, Mephistopheles knew that he had to get away, again. He couldn't see Dolores another time, and there was no hope of her ever remembering the night they'd once spent together.

He'd have to go somewhere farther this time, so there was no temptation to go back. Texas, maybe. It was time to move on.

Dolores watched the tall man with the strange horns on his head as he rushed out the restaurant. "Guess the job was just too stressful for him," she joked to Al Wheeler. But the waiter had looked so familiar. The fuzzy feeling started up at the back of her mind again, but Dolores pushed it away as she returned to her conversation with the detective.


End file.
